TREE-TRUNK BIRDS 185 
grubs and insect eggs. It does not seem very shy, here- 
abouts, but in the nesting time it loves deep, silent forests 
and the cedar swamps of the North, and it is only in these 
places that its strange, sweet song may be heard, which 
is something that I have never heard successfully imi- 
tated or put into syllables, but Mr. Brewster, who is 
one of the Wise Men who knows, says it is like the soft 
sigh of the wind among the pine boughs. 
“Tt is in these deep woods, also, that it nests. Discov- 
ering a tree where the bark is loose and yet does not strip 
off too easily, this little Creeper finds a nook of the right 
size, which he lines with soft bark, moss, or bits of wood 
so thoroughly decayed that it is like sponge, and in this 
bed are laid six or eight pretty little lavender eggs with 
brown spots wreathed about the larger end. 
““When the Creeper comes to us, he has evidently for- 
gotten home and family cares as well as his beautiful | 
song, for he only favours us with a very scratchy squeak, 
as if a file at work on a wire and a couple of crossed tree 
branches were striving to see which could sing the better. 
But he is as busy as busy can be, and acts as if he were 
practising for a race in climbing the stairs of a light- 
house tower. 
“At the bottom of the tree, he starts and goes up and 
around without a pause until he is two-thirds of the way 
up and the more frequent branches bother him. Then 
he stops a moment to rest, bracketing himself against 
the tree by the sharp point of his tail-feathers, which 
arrangement he possesses in common with the Chimney 
Swift and the Woodpeckers. Next, without warning, he 
flits with a backward tilt either to the base of another 
